Asked afterward if Watson should pick him, Woods made it clear he'd like to be on the United States team that plays against Europe at Gleneagles in September.

"I would say yes; but that's my position, my take on it," Woods said. "He's the captain. Obviously it's his decision. He's going to field the best 12 players that he thinks will win the Cup back. And I hope I'm on that team."

Woods does not have a realistic chance of being among the nine automatic qualifiers, which will be determined after the PGA Championship in three weeks. Watson then has three at-large selections following the second FedCup playoff event, the Deutsche Bank Championship. Those picks will be made Sept 2.

Complicating matters is the fact that Woods has a tall order in qualifying for the playoffs. With just two events left that he is expected to play -- the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational followed by the PGA Championship -- Woods would likely need to average top-three finishes in those tournaments.

Woods is 212th in the standings prior to the end of play Sunday, and needs to be among the top 125 to make it to the Barclays tournament next month. If he doesn't, Woods would have no PGA Tour events to play in the month leading up to the Ryder Cup.

Asked if he would consider playing elsewhere, perhaps on the European Tour, Woods didn't discount qualifying.

"Well, I'd like to win the next two tournaments I'm in. That should take care of that," he said.

Not helping the situation was the fact that Watson, 64, beat Woods here at Royal Liverpool, shooting a final-round 68 to move past him on the leaderboard.

"If he's playing well and in good health, I'll pick him," said Watson, repeating his recent stance on the subject. "But the caveat to that is if he doesn't make the FedEx Cup, what do I do then? That's not here yet."

Asked if would expect Woods to play a tournament elsewhere during the FedEx playoffs, Watson said: "That's up to him. It's not a mandatory thing. It would make it tougher for me to pick him if he's not playing."

Watson admitted that it is not a great situation to have Woods as well as Phil Mickelson outside of the team at this point. They are the two most acclaimed American players in the last 20 years.

"If Phil and Tiger don't make it in the mix there, I've got some real thinking to do," Watson said. "Everybody is thinking that I'm going to pick them automatically. I can assure you that I'm not going to pick them automatically. I said about Tiger that I'll pick him if he's playing well and he's in good health.

"And Phil is the same way. If he's playing well, again, how can you not pick those two?"